Egyptian Islamic Jihad

Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) was a Salafi Islamist group formed in Egypt in the 1970s. Its initial goal was to overthrow Anwar Sadat's government and make Egypt an Islamic state, but it later sought to attack the United States and Israel both in Egypt and abroad.

History
Egyptian Islamic Jihad was founded in 1980 by Islamists such as Ayman al-Zawahiri to overthrow the secularist government of Anwar Sadat and replace the government of Egypt with an Islamic state. EIJ was blamed for the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981, and many members were imprisoned; the group split into two factions in prison - the EIJ and al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya. EIJ declared that it was different in Takfir wal-Hijra because it did not decide who was an infidel due to sins, and it was different from the Muslim Brotherhood because it actively fought the government. EIJ was small and tightly-disciplined, and it developed links with other terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri becoming close partners.

The Egyptian Islamic Jihad gained sanctuary in Sudan during the 1990s like many other Islamist groups, but its executions and attempted assassination of President Hosni Mubarak in 1995 led to Sudan expelling EIJ. They had a cell in Albania briefly, but it was crushed in the Returnees from Albania trials, with many of the members of the cell being executed by the government. In 2001 the group merged with al-Qaeda, having a majority of shura council seats in the group. The Egyptian Islamic Jihad backed Mohamed Morsi when he became President of Egypt in 2011 following the Egyptian Revolution and formed the Islamic Party of Egypt.